A day later, another episode—this time a normal length one—of ST:TNG, this time ‘The Naked Now,’ episode ‘3’, given that ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ comprised one and two.
Watching it this time (versus my first viewing in 1987, and any later I had, including one in 2010) I was accutely aware of some ‘strange’ (to me) production decisions. In particular, the music cues seemed archaic. As Susie mentioned when watching ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ the credits seem too long (about 96 seconds, depending on how you count). 30 seconds seems to be it on most shows these days, and some even provide ‘credits’ during opening scenes, but here we are with full narration by Patrick Stewart and a leisurely stroll through the solar system. We get another extended musical score at the end of the episode, and during ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ we get the entire opening theme one more time! during the episode as we watch the saucer separate (about a minute here). But back to ‘The Naked Now.’ The fuller orchestra seemed gone. We had cheesy acoustic notes when one person ‘infected’ another by touching them, and so on.
But then it hit me and I connected it to what I already knew: in terms of plot this episode self-consciously models itself upon a TOS episode, and the solution is a variation on that original story’s solution … that is, at an obvious ‘meta-level’ TNG is setting itself up as a continuation of but variation on TOS. ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ gave us DeForrest Kelley, but here Kirk is name-checked. And all the little musical cues during the episode? Throwbacks to TOS. What I’d forgotten—and this is in recalling that this is the episode in which Data demonstrates that he is ‘fully functional’ to Tasha—was that this was so early in TNG’s run. As a kid I’d somehow missed the TOS references beyond the explicit, and in later viewings I’d watched this out-of-order.
And a last note or two: in ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ Crosby’s Yar seemed most out of place; everything in her tone and delivery seemed ill-matched to, say, Stewart, who was her frequent dialog partner. Nobody really misses Tasha’s coming demise. Here, though, I was amused (and not annoyed) not by her performance but by her costumes … in particular in how when she is ‘seducing’ Data she resembles, especially in her haircut, a character out of a late 20s or early 30s German film. In particular I’m thinking of the fake-Maria in ‘Metropolis’ and Louise Brooks in Pabst’s ‘Pandora’s Box’, though Crosby resembles neither character or actress explicitly. It was just an interesting note to hit, and I wonder about the extent to which it was intentional.
Finally … like most early TNG episodes this one shows its age (as Susie noted, it looks cheap, and not just the thin set walls, but also the relatively faded colors, and the way things were shot [and we were watching from a DVD set version of the episode]) and the story and plot contrivances do not mesh well with our 2011 television expectations. That having been said, sometimes I think we give this too little credit. As mentioned, the explicit TOS references can’t be missed, but the ‘little things’ in production that harken back to the days of Kirk and Spock offer a nice mood. And so early on this episode does what the pilot of sorts could not do: not just introduce characters (anew in a way) but also outline their story arcs. Yet it did so in a completely obvious way that at the same time didn’t have a real effect on continuity: in their ‘intoxication’ all main characters enact their prime conflicts or characteristics in the show to come (the Crusher-Picard sexual tension, Wesley’s wunderkind-ness and hero-worship of Picard, Data’s uncanny valley approach to humanity, Geordi’s emo-ness, Riker & Troi, and Riker’s own early humorlessness and seriousness … as the intoxication seems barely to effect him), but at the same time the slate is wiped clean at the end and all such behavior can be written off. And it’s worth noting has much a non-character Worf is at this point.
Cake. Eat it, too.
It’s blatant … but, at the level not of story but of story-telling, it’s smart.
Links:
- The Naked Now (et. al., A.V. Club)
- The Naked Now (Wikipedia)
- The Naked Now (Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki)
